Image captionBodyguard David Budd, played by Richard Madden, was outnumbered by women in the series

“There’s something slightly troubling about the fact that there’s lots of women in power but even the snipers [in Bodyguard] were women,” Goodwin told BBC Radio 4’s World at One.

“All the police officers were women and I just don’t believe that is necessarily an accurate representation of what goes on in the police at the moment.

“I think its unrealistic to pretend on television that women and men are treated equally and that’s not the case,” Goodwin added.

She said it was a “two way split” as “on one hand you want to promote positive role models for little girls but [on the other] let them know it’s not that easy and you might have to deal with a lot of negative remarks.”

The ITV writer, who has also written a number of novels, said she thinks progress could be made with more dramas that “reflect reality and the Me Too debate”.

“I think it’s extraordinary that the Me Too scandal erupted a year ago and we have seen nothing on screen that really reflected it.

“It’s a much more live issue now than it has ever been. Would anyone make a drama like Prime Suspect now? Where you have a very credible, brilliant female character who is battling sexism within the police force?”

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